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Posts with search refinements Tag

Effective Design Options You May Have Overlooked

Posted by Dawn MortenseneCommerce, Press, Ratings and Reviews, Site Search, Site Search Tips, Success Stories

Earlier this week, eConsultancy posted the article: 25 Effective Design Patterns for E-commerce Site Search Results. The article highlights great examples of search relevancy, site design and refinement options that help smooth customers’ path to find, and purchase, the items they’re looking for.

Five of the e-commerce sites spotlighted in the eConsultancy article are clients of SLI Systems, including Sutton’s Seeds, Abe’s of Maine, Boden, Lovehoney and B&Q. We’ve worked with these companies to implement effective site search solutions, using design options that many retailers overlook.

Abes Filtered Reviews 23apr14Abe’s of Maine – Filtered Reviews

Camera and photography retailer Abe’s of Maine stands out because of the way the company highlights reviews within search results. Not only can visitors view reviews in search results, but they can also set filtering options so they can find reviews that discuss aspects of camera equipment that are most relevant to them. Wine Enthusiast is another SLI client that offers the capability of reviews filtering. In both cases, the reviews filtering option gets a lot of use and tends to result in higher conversions.

 

Boden Refinements 23Apr14Boden – Effective Use of Refinements

Boden offers a comprehensive set of filtering options, including Category, Sub-category, Top-rated by Age, Top-rated by Size, Price Range, Color and more. The results page also lists search suggestions at the top, offering visitors alternate search terms to try. The Help and Style & Fit tabs across the top give shoppers more options for finding the right items according to personal characteristics like size and shape.

By making these improvements in site search, Boden has increased customer engagement and conversion rates for search. Read more in this Boden case study.


Lovehoney – Capitalizing on Trends

Lovehoney used search to its benefit by recognizing a fast-growing trend among fans of the book “50 Shades of Grey.” Long before the book became a mainstream success, the team at Lovehoney.co.uk noticed the search term was frequently used on their site. The company immediately capitalized on the emerging trend by creating custom product landing pages for searches related to “50 Shades of Grey.” By reacting quickly, Lovehoney not only boosted sales but also struck a product licensing deal with the “50 Shades” franchise. Now they are the exclusive retailer of the popular branded items. Read more in this Lovehoney case study.

Following Best Practices Leads to Profitability

What’s not discussed in the eConsultancy piece is that effective site search pages often generate higher per-visit and average order values, while reducing bounce rates. After implementing improvements with SLI, Boden’s search users became worth about 215% more per visit than non-site search users. Lovehoney experienced a 16% increase in average revenue per visit.

If your site search solution isn’t improving your e-commerce sales, you might want to take a close look at more examples of search done well. In addition to the examples in the eConsultancy article, you can find more than 20 case studies at sli-systems.com/customers/case-studies.

Sweet Success with Jelly Belly

Posted by Dawn MortenseneCommerce, Merchandising, Navigation, SEO, Site Search, Site Search Tips, Success Stories1 comment

Buttered Popcorn… Cream Soda… Toasted Marshmallow… most of us have favorite likes or dislikes when it comes to Jelly Bellies. And it’s nice to be able to order those favorites from Jelly Belly Candy Company’s online store at www.jellybelly.com. Jelly Belly’s eCommerce site is an important global sales channel for the company, which sells 100 other types of confections in addition to its 75 flavors of Jelly Bellies.

As highlighted in a newly published case study, Jelly Belly uses SLI Systems to improve its user experience and profitability. By optimizing site search and SEO, SLI helped Jelly Belly see a 33% increase in site conversions and a 10% increase in average order value. By using SLI’s customized product results pages and adding those links to email campaigns, Jelly Belly realized an 85% better open rate for emails.

Jelly Belly’s director of e-business Brandon Finch works closely with his Customer Success Manager at SLI to stay on top of search trends and best practices. Recently, Jelly Belly’s search data showed that their BeanBoozled product line of odd-flavored jelly beans was one of the most-searched for products on their site.

By the way, if you haven’t yet been BeanBoozled, watch out – a 1.6 ounce box contains both commonly liked flavors such as Peach or Licorice and identical-looking beans with flavors like Barf and Skunk Spray. It’s a higher-stakes trick than the one I did to my sister as a kid, swapping Watermelon Jelly Bellies for Jalepeno-flavored ones.

After learning how popular its BeanBoozled line was, Jelly Belly worked with SLI to add similar products to the search results page, so that shoppers buying BeanBoozled will also learn about Jelly Belly’s line of Harry Potter Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans, which also have strange flavors. (In a handful of Bertie Bott’s, you may taste dirt, earwax, booger, cherry and tutti-frutti.)

SLI also worked with Jelly Belly to create faceted navigation for Jelly Belly’s site, with search refinement options in the left column of the page. For those really into unusual Jelly Belly flavors, their BeanBoozled results page offers refinement by Taste, with the choices of Icky, Assorted or Chocolate.

SLI’s work with Jelly Belly is just one fun example of how SLI continually works to improve each customer’s site for the best possible search results and conversions. You can read additional examples from Boden, American Bridal, PartySuppliesDelivered, Snow + Rock and others on our case studies page, or listen to customers speak in our podcasts and recorded webinars.

Dynamic Search Refinements Improve Usability

Posted by Kish MaharajSite Search, Site Search Tips1 comment

Basic search refinements make it easy for customers to find what they are looking, but dynamic search refinements can supercharge your site search experience and provide a host of other usability benefits. They can help customers find exactly what they are looking for more quickly, make it easier to compare products, and reduce the risk of purchasing the wrong product.

Dynamic search refinements go beyond basic filter criteria such as price or brand. They are comprised of specific product features and specifications. And, they only appear in the product categories where they are relevant. In this example from Wholesale Tool, when a customer begins his search for a drill, he is presented with a relatively small list of refinements including category, origin and price range. Then, as he narrows the selection down to the “Air Tools” category, he is presented with many more refinements that are specific to the available air tools. This includes product specifications like the type of air inlet, average air consumption, RPM, and net weight.

Refinements for “Drill” Refinements After Selecting “Air Tools”
search-refinement-drill-1 search-refinement-drill-2

These search refinements change dynamically based on the product category that is selected. If the customer decides he wants to look at bits for his new drill, the refinements change to include things like size, type, flute length, diameter, and more. And, with over 200 types of drill bits to choose from, you can see how helpful this would be for a customer who was only interested in drill bits that had a flute length of 1-3/4 inches. Selecting that would quickly narrow the list of choices down to just five.

search-refinement-drill-bit

Another helpful feature is that the refinement groups are sticky. Thus, the customer can select one brand of drill bits and then narrow the selection further to a specific size of drill bit from that brand. Using dynamic search refinements also helps you improve usability by minimizing the filter options early in the search and ensuring that they only expand with options that are relevant to the product category of interest.

When your product catalog includes items that have features and specifications that are important buying criteria for your customers, consider implementing dynamic search refinements to improve their site search experience.